What I love about Graham’s story is that it reinforces the model of passion to profits, and he’s profiting with a monetization choice that has become increasingly popular…
Selling video courses and memberships!
Say Hello to Graham Cochrane
I first heard about 32-year-old Graham from a Business Insider article. If you follow my Facebook page, you may remember me posting this a few weeks ago. His story was so inspiring, I thought I’d reach out to him to answer a few questions for my blog.
How it all Started
Graham lost his job in 2009, and like a lot of people, he didn’t feel very entrepreneurial.
He wanted a steady, stable 9 to 5 job to support his family, but his savings were dwindling and he needed to do something fast. His goal was to ramp up his freelance sound recording and mixing side gig, and hopefully earn enough to do that full time.
In addition to freelancing, Graham also had a blog, which has now been rebranded as The Recording Revolution. He used the site to answer the constant stream of questions he received from friends and family about mixing and recording.
For the first two years, the site hardly made anything at all.
I hope you go back and re-read that sentence again. There’s a misconception that success should and does happen overnight, and for most people it doesn’t. This is why I’m such a fan of choosing niches you are passionate about. You will remain more patient during the income drought because of the love for what you do.
From Freemium to Premium
On the blog, Graham continued to offer amazing, free content, but then branched out into selling video courses that range between $39 and $897. He also has a $27/month membership site that offers additional content not included in his courses.
Over 6,000 people have taken his courses so far and he is now earning between $35,000 and $75,000 per month! Those dollar amounts certainly got my attention, so I reached out to Graham to answer a few more questions about his courses.
1) What software are you using to host your courses and membership site? (WordPress plugin? Custom built?) Why did you choose to go that route?
I currently use Kajabi to host most of my premium courses.
It’s easy, professional, and allows a lot of customization. I used to deliver videos directly as a download only but I feel the membership site platform offers a better user experience and allows me to update and add to the product with ease.
Lisa’s note: I remember a time when the process of selling courses and creating membership sites was so intimidating. Today, with so many options that make it super easy (Udemy, Skillshare, Fedora, Creative Live, countless WordPress membership plugins, etc.) there’s no reason to put it off any longer.
2) How do you drive traffic to your products?
Via my blog and email list. The blog is the key – as that’s where I create all my free content in order to grow my brand, following, and eventually email list subscribers. The email list is where I alert students of my in-depth paid courses.
Lisa’s note: By the way, Graham’s blog traffic was all generated organically through content creation. He uses social media regularly, but nothing more than sharing new articles.
3) Did you package up your existing free blog content that is already online for your courses/membership site or is a mixture of new and existing content?
My paid courses consist of new and more in-depth material. Nothing that I offer free is repackaged and sold. That to me would be dishonest and miss the point.
Lisa’s note: I do think it’s best to offer mostly new material for your premium work, BUT some people do find value in packaging up existing content into an organized format. And as long as you are upfront about it, I think it’s fine. Many bloggers make a killing re-packaging their content and their audience loves it. Darren Rowse did it with his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog free autoresponder course that he turned into an ebook.
4) What advice would you have for someone who is new and/or not making anything online, but wants to start selling courses and/or create a membership site?
It doesn’t matter how good of an online product you have if you don’t have anyone to sell it to, and selling blindly to the world isn’t a good strategy. Sell to your mailing list as they are warm leads who already love your content (free stuff) and are excited to deeper and learn more.
Lisa’s note: Amen to that. Too many new bloggers focus on selling without first generating an audience to sell to. That’s where the real work comes in, and it could take a couple of years to do it. Don’t put the cart before the horse!
5) You read The Four Hour Workweek regularly. How has that specifically helped you and/or your business succeed?
The 4HWW has helped me stay focused. It’s taught me to eliminate, automate, or delegate the least important things so that I use my time for things that have big impact on my business growth (i.e. creating free content, paid content, and promoting to my list).
The book reminds me that being busy is really a form of laziness – mismanaged priorities. It challenges me to keep my business lean, simple, and effective.
——————————————
Graham is a freelance mix engineer based in Tampa, FL and the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world’s most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month.
